The White House defended the Pentagon’s handling of a September attack on an alleged drug-running boat and denied that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given an order to kill everyone on the vessel, rebutting a report that had led to allegations of possible war crimes.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt confirmed there were two strikes on the vessel in the Sept. 2 attack but stressed the actions were lawful amid a deadly domestic opioid crisis in the U.S. She also said the order for the second strike came from U.S. Navy Admiral Frank Bradley and not Hegseth.

President Donald Trump and Hegseth “have made it clear that presidentially designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war,” Leavitt told reporters at the White House.

The comments signaled Trump continues to support Hegseth, who came under fresh scrutiny after the Washington Post reported Friday that he ordered the attack and demanded that those strikes kill everyone on board. That report led to accusations that the U.S. military was committing war crimes in the waters off the coast of South America.

Leavitt denied that Hegseth had issued a verbal order to kill all onboard the vessel. She told reporters “the president has made it quite clear that if narco terrorists again are trafficking illegal drugs towards the United States, he has the authority to kill them and that’s what this administration is doing.”

The military campaign against suspected drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere has killed more than 80 people and spurred debate over its legality, with critics accusing the administration of conducting extrajudicial killings. The U.S. campaign eventually widened to include targets in the eastern Pacific Ocean, and Trump has alluded repeatedly to the possibility that the U.S. could strike land targets inside Venezuela.

Bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate armed services committees said they would investigate reports of the second strike. Referring to the link between the boat strikes and a potential campaign in Venezuela, Leavitt said that Hegseth had spoken “with members of Congress who may have expressed some concerns over the weekend.”

Leavitt also confirmed Monday that the president would convene his national security team later in the day as he weighs his next steps on Venezuela. The U.S. military has amassed considerable forces in the region, fueling speculation that Trump would order a broader attack on the Venezuelan mainland that was aimed at unseating President Nicolas Maduro.

The administration has accused Maduro of heading a drug-trafficking organization known as the Cartel de los Soles, which the U.S. in November designated as a foreign terrorist organization. The U.S. repatriated the survivors of an October strike to Ecuador and Colombia. Asked Monday whether U.S. policy on the disposition of survivors had changed in the wake of the initial strike, Leavitt said, “not to my knowledge, no.”

In late November, six Democratic members of Congress released a video reminding service members of their obligation to disobey unlawful orders — without identifying any such order — prompting Trump to accuse the lawmakers of sedition and suggest their actions could be punishable by death.

Hegseth directed Navy Secretary John Phelan to investigate the conduct of Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a retired Navy captain and former astronaut, and has suggested the Democrat could be recalled to active duty to face court-martial proceedings.

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